


Interagency Cooperation

by Hope



Category: Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-11
Updated: 2004-07-11
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for Linaelyn</p>
    </blockquote>





	Interagency Cooperation

**Author's Note:**

> for Linaelyn

two men enter the town that day, one a few hours after the other.  the first is carrying a guitar case with what looks like a dusty silk scarf tied round the neck of it.  the inexorable rhythm of his coming ringing with every second step; he has dips of chains draped from his hip and down the side of his thigh.

he smiles as he comes out of the sun, gratefully, moving toward the old sandstone rampants of the buildings forming the opening square of the town, into the cool darkness of the shade.

the second man carries a small dog, a chihuahua, and his depleted suit has huge bullseyes where the sweat has spread from his underarms and darkened the powder blue.  his mouth closes and he swallows painfully when he sees the veritable oasis of people moving about in the square; he stumbles beneath one of the faded awnings and accepts gratefully a machete-hacked coconut dripping with melting ice.

their faces are bland and blank when he asks them, not amused or puzzled, though they deliver the same negation as towns before this one.  he tips the coconut gently as the dog's pink tongue flickss out rapidly to capture the last cool droplets, and when he steps out of the cover of the awning it's like stepping out of a sound chamber. 

the heat-buzz of the desert is no longer present in the clean, dusty enclosure of the town's square; instead he can hear -- like the beautiful, sinuous tracks of a snack moving through sand -- through the comfortable silence, the softly picked notes of a guitar.

they ascend as he moves closer, accelerate and shift unbearably, never descending into strumming, slowing again as he steps out of the sun and into the dark beneath the blocked buildings, his shoes crunching the scatterings of sand on the well-worn stone-paved ground within.  it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust; a few things come out of the semi-darkness to him first: the sheen along the curved, polished body of a guitar, a jewel hanging from the head of it, swinging loosely, a stripe of white, gleaming fabric beneath it.

jorge always gets his man.  he can't _not_ get is man, now, for fear the dark fist in his belly will tighten again, pull the rest of him in.  he fumbles in his back pocket before his eyes have fully adjusted to this soft darkness, the dark shape before him lays the guitar carefully aside.  jorge's muscles are loose from walking, from waiting, and he fumbles.  the dog loses its precarious perch in the crook of his arm and leaps to the ground, scrambling a little, yelping, before scampering towards the seated man.

jorge's vision clears further when he holds up his badge, almost at arm's length but for the shaking, like a shield (_against what?_) before him, and el looks up. 

"long day, eh?" el murmurs, and it takes a moment for jorge to realise he's talking to the dog and not jorge himself; el's hand huge on the tiny head, huge enough to crush it, destroy it without weapons, but the dog just pushes up and closes its huge eyes in pleasure, its ears pushed down by el's fondling fingers.

"may i?" el asks when jorge has shuffled close enough, brows in his dark face raised slightly, and the movement when he reaches forward and takes jorge's badge like he's being offered it is loose, liquid, relaxed with relief rather than exhaustion.  jorge, though shieldless now, continues to step hesitantly closer.  el's hand, brushing against his fingers as he took the badge from jorge, were rough and cool, as if he hadn't been walking and hitching across mexico for the past week.  el's hair falls across his face, now, as he tilts it down and tilts the badge in his hand to catch the sparse light in the dark semi-enclosure. 

the scratched lines of the erased letters are as ever-present as ever, invisible from a distance, or if flashed rapidly before the swift delivery of a bullet, but upon any kind of close observation, blatantly obvious.  the badge is also splattered a little with dried blood; the chihuahua whines a little at the cessation of el's attention, pushes up between his hands and begins to lick at the dark spots on the plastic covering.

el laughs, the sound rich and dry in the cool place, and looks up at jorge again, eyes glimmering.

"Now _that_," he says, voice easy and curled around his laughter, "is what I call interagency cooperation."

**Author's Note:**

> http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/25971.html


End file.
